Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud services arm of the global retail giant Amazon, will open a regional data center in Israel in the first half of 2023.
The Tel Aviv region will enable even more developers, start-ups, and enterprises as well as government, education, and nonprofits to run their applications and serve end-users from data centers located in Israel. Customers in Israel will continue to join the millions of active customers who are using AWS every month in over 190 countries around the world, the company said.
AWS was recently selected, along with Google, to provide cloud services to the Israeli government as part of its massive Nimbus Project. The two IT giants will set up cloud-based data centers as part of a plan to move much of the government’s IT infrastructure to the cloud, at an initial investment of NIS 4 billion.
The Nimbus Project is intended to provide a comprehensive and in-depth solution for the provision of cloud services to the government, the defense system and other bodies in the economy.
“The new region is a continuation of our investment to support enterprises of all kinds, help start-ups scale and grow, enable technical skills development and create cloud literacy,” said Peter DeSantis, senior vice president of global infrastructure, AWS. “Cloud technology is at the heart of the Israeli government’s digital transformation program, and their approach highlights the importance of setting a strong course for cloud adoption and leading by example to reinvent citizen services.”
AWS opened its first office in Israel to service the local market in 2014, and in the same year, Amazon established a research and development (R&D) center in the country. Since then, Amazon’s R&D presence in Israel has expanded and now includes Prime Air, Alexa Shopping, and Amazon Lab126.